


The Fall and Rise of William Brandt

by annakas



Category: Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011)
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Possibly Pre-Slash, Survivor Guilt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-23
Updated: 2013-12-23
Packaged: 2018-01-05 16:42:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,698
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1096215
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/annakas/pseuds/annakas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>William Brandt the failed and burned out field agent of IMF.<br/>Or.<br/>William Brandt the rise of the Chief Analyst of IMF.<br/>Or.<br/>William Brandt: the man who fell, rose again, felt guilty, earned his forgiveness, crushed hard and finally had hope for a better future.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Fall and Rise of William Brandt

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jessalae](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jessalae/gifts).



There were days when William Brandt would miss being the chief analyst of IMF. Brandt has been the chief analyst of IMF for a year and a half now, and the thing he likes the most about it is its routine. More than anything, Brandt has discovered that he thrives on predictability. Waking up in the morning, running, doing his ablutions, getting dressed for work (always in a suit, grey or black, strict straight cut and classic) eating breakfast (oatmeal and toast) and drinking coffee (as he likes it in the privacy of his home, with a dash of cream and two cubes of sugar – brown, unrefined, fair trade). He liked driving to work, but days where he was picked up to be driven with the Secretary of IMF if a case demanded it weren’t so bad. He liked getting his hands on the new intel that had been gathered while he was home sleeping, analyzing it and forwarding the data to those who needed it. Lunch was either alone in the cafeteria (steamed vegetables, with meatballs and potatoes, coffee black) or with the Secretary of IMF in whatever place they found themselves for the day’s task. In those cases the menu was flexible but the coffee always had to be black, far too bitter for his taste, but it sent out a message: I am a man who accepts the world as it is, dark and bitter, and I don’t need to sweeten nor lighten anything to survive in it. He was used to making a statement that way. After lunch it was back to data gathering and analyzing until it was evening – then it was time to work out with either weights, combat, yoga or firearms training. Only when he was fully exhausted was it time to go home, eat dinner (usually take out) and drink chamomile tea. And then it was time for sleep, a quick respite before his routine started up all over again the next day.

 

Brandt loved the stability and sureness of his everyday routine as a chief analyst of IMF because that offered his mind the calm and structure he couldn’t get out in the field. His fast burn out and dismal failure as a field agent had shown him clearly that, while he looked promising and good on paper, the reality of actually being out there fulfilling missions would lead to disappointment for everyone. The intensity and rawness of the field made him lose sight of the goals of the mission – fear of failure for loss of life for the people in his team and under his protection would take root and take over his ability to think clearly. As an analyst out of the field he could stay calm, see far and clearly, find motivations and clues that others missed. His fast rise in the ranks of IMF’s analysts had been surprising but beneficial for everyone: the loss of agents had fallen a whole twelve point six percent after he switched tracks within the agency and took over analyzing the incoming data, and the impossible mission success rate had risen nine point two percent (he had calculated both one day in a fit of boredom). He was, in a word, essential.

Becoming the chief analyst of IMF symbolized to Brandt his rise like a phoenix from the ashes. He stopped being the utter disappointment that failed IMF’s best agent in their time of need by getting Julia killed on his watch and leaving Ethan forgotten in a Russian hard regime prison. He could shed that identity like a dead skin and become who he was meant to be. 

Being known as the guy who could not protect his team and failed the most legendary agent within the agency had been shattering. Ethan Hunt had been loved by all; his mission success rate was unbeaten, and after Hunt’s retirement and happily-ever-after marriage, it was demoralizing to know that they had failed one of their own after he had left the game. While it wasn’t general knowledge within the agency that it was Brandt who had been the team leader of that exact mission, and though no one knew what exactly had happened to Hunt and his wife, there were enough rumors going around that not everything had gone smoothly.  
Hunt and his wife were missing, with whispers of Hunt off on his own, executing unsanctioned kills. Brandt was known as a former field agent who burned out after a disastrous mission and was now starting over as an analyst. Few people knew what Brandt’s disastrous mission was, and even fewer knew what had happened to Hunt afterwards.

Still, rumors were abound and whether Brandt wanted it or not, he heard them all in the cafeteria or elsewhere within the IMF building in the idle discussions where bored workers wondered what had happened. He never took part in those talks, but since he knew the truth (or what he thought was the truth at the time), it was enough to stab him in the heart with pain and regret whenever anyone raised the topic within his earshot.

Talks about Ethan Hunt, the best agent IMF had ever had were not rare. Some of his past mission reports and the unique solutions he had use in getting out of hard situations were used as a learning tools for new IMF agents. The agents he had trained or worked with on missions before his retirement kept the legend of Ethan Hunt going by bragging about their experiences with the man. Brandt himself had been overly excited when he learned whom he had to protect in Croatia and he had been so honored to get task. Observing the legend himself, who he had learned so much about had been amazing, until the easy mission had turned in to a total kock up, with Julia missing presumed dead and Hunt in hard regime Russian prison for six revenge kills.

Being an analyst had become Brandt’s redemption, curing him with every agent and asset that was saved because of his unique way of handling the gathered intel. He could breathe easier, but it never took the pain over his failure completely away. It had been complete chance that Brandt had fallen into a career as an analyst – Desk, counseling and reevaluation bound, ripe for firing, he had begged his handler to give him something to do to get his mind off things. He’d been handed some mind-numbing data to read and summarize, something his handler surely thought would sap out his entire will to live. But Brandt’s former field stints helped him understand the needs of the other agents better than most, and it allowed him to see the intel in front of him in a whole new way. Before he knew it, his temporary assignment had turned into a permanent fast-track career as the best analyst IMF had. He found himself as the head of the branch, answering only to upper-level management and the secretary of IMF himself.

Brandt knew that everything he did or said was judged and scrutinized by everyone in his work sphere, where machismo was the altar of worship. Those who failed to perform to the expected values, be they visual or behavior-based, were not taken as seriously, whether they delivered the goods or not. They worked in a shadowy world, where only the strongest and most adaptable would survive. So Brandt had to be strong and adapt.

He had seen how active field agents treated Benji Dunn after he had passed qualifications to go out into the field, how they generally acted and talked in disbelief and ridicule. There was mistrust about having someone known as a tech support guy as your back up in a physical fight, especially when he looked skinny and talked nerdy. Benji was respected behind the computer, his voice listened to through the comm unit during a mission, but take him out from behind the desk and put him into the actual field, and respect goes down. Most field agents were recruited directly from the military, police force or other agencies where alpha male looks, attitude and charm were everything, and tech support and analysts were seen as people to be protected. 

As a former field agent, Brandt had understood that thinking pattern completely, even if it rankled him that after he had made his switch in directions within IMF, those attitudes were slowly starting to be directed at himself. The longer he had been away from the active field and missions, the more he was seen as someone to be protected and doubted when his advice didn’t fall in with the opinion of an active field agent.

Even the way he drank his coffee could be judged now that he wasn’t a field agent. He had to impress powerful people who were used to be in charge, had to get them to believe that his analysis was correct and that he knew the best course of action to take to get the desired results. An agent sees an analyst drink his coffee with cream and sugar and will think, Ahh, he’s spoiled, can’t rough it or face reality. And this is the person whose analysis could decide the fate of my team? instead of seeing it as a mere preference of the analyst’s tastebuds. Brandt had once done a calculated bit of statistics in how much the way he drank his coffee influenced the attitude he would get and found out to his dismay that drinking coffee with cream and sugar had lowered how seriously he was being taken whole four point three percent, drinking it black had raised it by six point two. So he changed his public coffee drinking habits to black only. It was the same with clothes: dark, classically-cut suits get the best and most professional results in interactions between an analyst and a field agent or upper level manager within the agency. Every small bit counts if it means being taken more seriously and his analysis accepted without too much arguing. It saves time and lives, and for Brandt, that’s the most important part of his job.

Ethan himself hadn’t taken Brandt as seriously as he should have when they met for the first time and Brandt had been introduced as chief analyst by the secretary. While Ethan had changed his mind after Brandt proved himself, it was still a sour reminder how far he had fallen where stereotypes ruled first impressions. By merely stating his job title, he had been categorized as a non-combatant civilian administrative clerk.

Not that Brandt blamed Ethan for the dismal first impression. That whole meeting had been one fubar of a situation, and Brandt himself hadn’t been at his best when meeting face to face thanks to the reminder of his biggest failure: the man whose wife he thought he had gotten tortured and killed.

It had been exhilarating and terrifying to be out in the field again after so long, especially with the man whose life he thought he had ruined. Ethan had been amazing – seeing his skills up close and in action was breathtaking. Rumors within IMF about the legendary Agent Hunt didn’t do him justice. 

When Ethan offered Brandt a permanent place on his team and looked upon him with such high regard, it felt like a noose was slowly tightening around Brandt’s neck. It was time to come clean about their past, and Brandt steeled himself, preparing to see how that warmth in Ethan’s face would be replaced with shock, disgust and hate.

Only it hadn’t. Instead, it had been Brandt himself who was shocked to his core when he learned that Hunt knew about his failure of a mission and didn’t blame him. He offered him absolution, shared with him his biggest secret of Julia being well and alive. A secret Brandt cherished, one he was prepared to bring with himself to his grave. 

Brandt had accepted the phone, and with that a place in Hunts team in shocked, euphoric relief. But now that he was back in the field and had some time to calm down and reflect over the discussion he had with Hunt over half a year ago, he wasn’t sure if it was the best decision to become an active field agent again. He also wasn’t sure if he agreed with Hunt’s analysis about the Croatian mission. Something just didn’t add up.

Whether it was as Ethan himself had said, who got Julia out from under the nose of Brandt’s team, and then faked her death and made his apparent revenge killings of the Serbian hit squad who supposedly got her or if she really had been kidnapped by the Serbians and Ethan had just managed a successful rescue mission the fact was that Brandt failed in his protection detail. It didn’t matter who had her in the end; it only mattered that they had gotten through his team’s defense when they shouldn’t have. And it was just incredible fortune for Brandt’s conscience that he doesn’t have to carry the burden of her death or, god forbid, his team’s death, for the rest of his life.

The fact that Brandt’s team just got knocked out instead of killed favored Ethan’s version of events, since surely the Serbian squad would have just killed everyone on their way. That is, unless it would have been more effective for them to get Julia quietly without a big shoot-out.

Since Brandt himself had shadowed Ethan during his run, it could not have been Ethan who knocked out the IMF agents and taken Julia. Would Hunt have trusted any of the IMF agents with the job? Perhaps only Luther, his known best friend within the agency. 

Brandt cursed silently. Hunt had said, “Waste not, want not,” when he talked about what happened in Croatia, which implied he had to go after an actual Serbian hit squad and kill them. That told Brandt that Hunt had to go to actually save Julia and that she had been really taken, instead of just pretending to be kidnapped. That would mean that after killing the men who took her, Hunt used the opportunity to fake her death, since it became apparent to Ethan that it had become too dangerous for Julia to be his wife. So those kills must have been unsanctioned hits, and as a punishment, IMF chucked Ethan into Russian prison to do a low-grade intelligence-gathering mission to cool his heels in there until he was needed again and broken out of there.

And Brandt just wasn’t sure what was the truth.

Brandt sat behind his desk and thought hard. Do I actually believe Ethan’s version because it makes the most sense, or because I want to believe it so I won’t feel so guilty about the failure? Brandt wondered. Would Ethan lie to me about the events in Croatia and how they happened? 

He reclined in his chair, looking out the window towards the setting sun. He tossed the matter over in his mind more thoroughly. He might lie if he thought it would help regain some of my self-confidence and me get back into the field like he wants. Julia is alive and well, and Hunt’s back to top form. He wants me back on his team, and he’s the type of man to do anything he can to get what he wants.

Brandt sighs, scratching his chin. He’s starting to wonder whether or not it even matters, which version of events is true. Either way, that mission was a failure for Brandt. It doesn’t matter whether he was outsmarted and set up by IMF’s best agent or if the Serbians really got through. Brandt should have been prepared for every contingency in his protection detail instead of drooling over Ethan Hunt from afar. And Brandt’s reaction to failure itself was perhaps the biggest tell about whether he was mentally suitable to be a field agent at all.

Brandt had to find a way to really move on. He wasn’t sure if he was ready or even wanted to permanently go back out into the field again. It might be better to continue as an analyst. While he missed the easy respect active field agents had and how he had to try a lot harder to be taken seriously within the agency in an administrative branch as an analyst, he did know he was currently one of the best at that job. He liked the stability and structure of it.

It was kind of nice to be out in the field again. Or at least it was nice being a part of Ethan’s team. The four impossible missions he had taken part in since accepting Hunt’s invitation had been exhilarating experiences. Ethan Hunt was one amazing field agent, and he was even better as a team leader. He had a way of bringing out the best in his team even in the trickiest of situations. He could adapt, stay calm and focused when the circumstances of the mission changed rapidly around them, and find a way to get the successful solution that they needed. Ethan Hunt got results that other field agents only dreamed of getting and aspired to imitate. 

Brandt himself knew that he did his best work behind computers, mining their incoming data and putting together the puzzle pieces of what was going on in their world and which dangers were rising. He knew which ones merely looked dangerous but were without substance, what was the best route and time in handling the upcoming situations. While Brandt knew he was a good fighter, that he had the necessary training to be out in the field and was smart enough for it, there was some kind of inner flaw in him that blocked his usually sharp mind when he went out himself. He got his best results as IMF’s chief analyst, and being an active field agent wasn’t his forte.

For a moment, though, he had believed he could excel at both. His four missions as part of Ethan’s team, since their first one, had given him back the self-confidence in the field that he had lacked since the crash and burn in Croatia. But the one impossible mission he had accepted and done solo had sown the seeds of doubt once more. While that mission had been successful, it had not run smoothly. Brandt had been off his game – he couldn’t focus and reorient when the situation changed, and he had sorely missed Ethan’s calm and reassuring presence. This had shown him that solo missions or missions as a part of some other IMF team were a bad idea where he was concerned.

Ethan brought out the best qualities in Brandt and he always performed at the peak of his abilities when he was under Hunt’s command. What started off as an admiration of the best IMF agent had turned in to a full-blown crush on the man during their recent missions. Brandt had tried to pretend otherwise for a long time, had tried to behave, but it was hopeless. And Hunt wasn’t helping to smother his crush with the way he flirted with everyone around him, including Brandt. It was just the way Hunt was. 

Why did Ethan’s presence cause such a major difference in Brandt’s performance ability? Did it really matter? He decided to in the future only accept the missions Hunt called him on and reject any other offers. Brandt didn’t want to give up field work completely – he liked how he was respected more in IMF now, and the amazing hazard pay field agents got and traveling perks were certainly nice. But Brandt knew it would be a bad idea to go out with any other team but Hunt’s. Brandt really didn’t want to give up being an analyst at IMF; he excelled in it, he actually liked the work and how it challenged his mind to see patterns around him and how to influence them so the world would be a safer place. He wanted to work at his computer, and he wanted to work with Hunt.

Could Brandt do both? Be on Ethan’s team for missions, and the rest of the time continue to be an analyst at IMF? After being disavowed, IMF needed all the support in the rebuilding of their structure as they could get, and that meant a lot of work for analysts. Brandt couldn’t just take off as a chief analyst. Working both jobs was hard but so far doable. Would Hunt accept that as a permanent solution? 

Only one way to find out. Brandt placed the call and waited. Whatever direction he decided to take, he knew that it would be better and brighter than the one he was on before.

“Ethan listening,” said the warm voice on the phone.

Brandt was nervous, but he pushed forward. “Hunt, we need to talk.”

“Oh, what an ominous beginning, William. Hasn’t anyone told you it’s bad to start serious relationship discussions with that line? Someone will think they’re in trouble. And it’s Ethan, not Hunt. I think we’re one a first name basis by now.” Brandt could hear laughter in Ethan’s tone down the line.

Brandt was taken a little aback, not sure what to say next. “Ethan…”

“I wondered when you would call, Will. You want answers to all the questions your big brain has churned out since our last meeting. Dinner? In two hours at Pierre, then you can tell me all about the solo mission in Dubai that I heard you took? I’ll pick you up.” Ethan was always so self-assured, the grin in his voice always easy to hear. “Play your cards right and anything could happen, my friend. See you then.”

Brandt stared at his phone as it clicked silent, baffled over the short talk and yet oddly charmed. He knew that whatever happened that evening, things were looking up. He was hopefully getting the answers and the direction in his life that he needed. Finally. 

Even if Ethan took Brandt’s life in surprising directions, he was ready. The future was waiting.


End file.
